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This week, NTL will extend the availability of on-demand TV to Belfast, with 250,000 of its customers already having what it claims is unprecedented control over their viewing.

Telewest predicted the huge expansion of video and television on-demand services on its platform and that of NTL would transform the way consumers watch TV.

Its claim came after the company announced that it had signed agreements with a string of broadcasters, including BBC Worldwide, Discovery Networks Europe and National Geographic Channel, to supply hundreds of hours of programming from next month.

NTL's latest move comes with more than one million films or programmes having been streamed on its video-on-demand – VOD – service since its launch in January.

The Belfast extension follows previous launches in more than a dozen centres, including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Nottingham.

The company has also added Paramount Studios to its list of content providers, which also include BBC, Nickelodeon and Walt Disney.

Shai Weiss, managing director of NTL consumer products division, described the emerging NTL service as "television as it's meant to be". NTL claims the UK now offers the biggest VOD service outside the US.

"We offer a huge choice of programming, all at the touch of a button," Weiss said.

Telewest is ploughing millions into VOD content and its heavyweight line-up of channel suppliers, including content from its Flextech channels, will be launched in a pilot in Cheltenham, with other regions to follow later this year.

Eric Tveter, president and chief operating officer at Telewest Broadband, said: "We believe that TV-on-demand will transform the way consumers watch TV."

The rapidly growing but still relatively small HomeChoice also offers on-demand movies over broadband – mainly restricted to the London area with an estimated 18,000 customers, compared to the 2.5 million homes with cable.

The BBC sees video and TV-on-demand as a potentially important plank of its future.

Richard Halton, the corporation's controller of strategy, who is leading Mark Thompson's Creative Futures Group as it draws up a blueprint for future BBC services, told Media Week: "The video-on-demand trials are a great opportunity for us.

"Ashley Highfield [the BBC's head of digital] has already talked about his vision for what he calls Martini Television – any time, any place, anywhere."

Telewest has said it will be spending £20m in the development of TV-on-demand and also on plans to roll out a personal video recorder device, similar to Sky+, later this year.

The developments are a further threat to traditional TV spot advertising, but according to David Ratcliffe, sales development director at 24/7 RealMedia, which sells ads for both Telewest and NTL, they are also an opportunity.

"VOD is the killer application for cable. Advertisers are now starting to ask what is the point of a traditional broadcast ad."

However, 24/7, which is audited by ABC rather than Barb, is developing technology which will allow clients to take out banner ads on the video-on-demand menus, which can be measured using similar econometrics as the internet.

BBC wants content on the EPGi

The BBC, a key player in the development of video-on-demand services, wants to have all its content on a single electronic programme guide (EPG) that would allow viewers to watch shows up to seven days after they first air on television or over the internet.

Strategy director Richard Halton told Barb's Future into View launch last week that such an EPG would be a "massive opportunity to join up content".

Later, he told Media Week that improving the navigation to channels was a key aim of the BBC, especially with the rise of personal video recorders.

The BBC's biggest problem could well be Sky, which already has its own EPG – and often gives prominence to its own channels at the expense of rivals like the BBC.

Sky will also be keeping a close watch on the development of video-on-demand, as it battles to stay at the top of the multichannel business.